The town of Wolfenbüttel
lying on the river Oker in Lower Saxony, is an attractive town,
with many medieval survivals, some fine old churches and an
impressive Schloss. It was home, at one time or another, to
the composer Michael Praetorius and, much later, to the dramatist
Lessing – he wrote Nathan the Wise there. It is also
home, or more specifically the Herzog-August Bibliothek in the
town, is home to one of the most important manuscripts of medieval
Scottish music. Visit the library and you will have to ask for
Wolfenbüttel Herzog-August-Bibliothek 628 Helmstadiensis – but
there are modern facsimiles.

This Wolfenbüttel
manuscript is a quite substantial collection. Its first ten
fascicles contain music associated with the Parisian school
centred on Notre Dame – including work by Perotin. The collection
contains fascinating evidence as to the evolution of polyphony
in twelfth-century France. In fascicle 11, however, there are
some 46 compositions, all of them designed for use in votive
Masses addressed to the Virgin. These materials are designated
as belonging to the Liber monasterii sancti Andreeapostoli
in scocia, that is ‘The book of the monastery of St. Andrew
the Apostle, in Scotland’. This part of W1 (as the manuscript
is usually referred to) at least, and perhaps not only this
part, was copied at St. Andrews in Scotland. The music, in the
words of the scholar Edward Roesner, “was drawn from diverse
sources, some Continental, indeed Parisian, some British, some
“local”, but the settings all reveal the same stylistic traits,
suggesting the significant input of a local musician in shaping
the music, whatever its original sources may have been. From
all indications, that local musician and that compiler worked
at St. Andrews, certainly no later than the middle of the 13th
century and possibly a few decades earlier”.

Canty here give
us a selection from the work contained in fascicle 11 of this
important manuscript, and the results are very beautiful. All
the polyphonic writing is in two parts and Canty give a persuasive
account of it. There’s a radiance of sound that beguiles the
ear and gives a particular quality to these settings of texts
in praise of the virgin which are often quite sensuous in their
language and imagery. Of course, it also loses one of the dimensions
which performance by male voices would bring to the music. Swings
and roundabouts, I suppose.

Material has been
chosen and arranged so as to present a plausible approximation
to the contents of a Lady Mass (which had no fixed form). Here
is much to admire and enjoy here – such as the stately and austere
joy of the ‘Gloria: Per precem piissimam’ or the unsentimental,
tender dignity of the ‘Agnus dei: factus homo’. There is occasional
instrumental accompaniment from William Taylor, always discreet.
Quite a few of the items here are receiving their first recordings
– including the lovely ‘Kyrie; Creator puritatis’. Full texts
and translations are provided.

It was, I think, The
New Yorker which once described Anonymous 4 as the “fab four
of medieval music”. Canty bid fair to be Scotland’s “fab four
of medieval music” on this well-conceived and executed CD.

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